On the first day of the Lunar New Year, a reader left the following comment under that article:
“...In 2025, a lot happened, and due to some realistic reasons, I had to choose to clear out and temporarily leave the crypto space. ...”
In my impression, during several online exchanges held in 2025, I encountered some friends each time who left the crypto ecosystem for various unavoidable reasons.
Each time I encountered such examples, I hoped that these friends' departures were only temporary. I hoped that these friends could return in the future when the opportunity was right, whether back to the crypto ecosystem or any investment ecosystem.
Because our readers are still young, they need to believe that the current difficulties are just temporary and that the future will surely be bright. To welcome a bright future, we are likely to return to the path of investment after overcoming difficulties.
Before 2025, or more accurately, before the first half of 2025, I believe that the reason for such situations occurring to a large extent was that our country encountered some problems during its economic transformation over the past years, compounded by the downward pressure from the real estate sector on the entire society.
But in the second half of 2025, especially when I began to frequently use AI tools and the development of AI started to penetrate various industries at an increasing pace, I gradually felt that, for most people living domestically, it was not only necessary to bear the consequences of economic transformation and real estate downturn but also to additionally endure the surprises brought about by AI development.
The first time I used a paid AI tool, I tentatively assigned it some tasks. These tasks were what I usually assigned to my colleagues. As a result, in less than half an hour, it provided satisfactory outcomes for all the tasks I assigned.
This AI tool completed the work of three employees in less than half an hour.
Yet this tool costs less than 300 yuan per month, while the combined monthly salary of three employees exceeds 20,000 yuan.
This result left me feeling unsettled for a long time.
Although I often see many people online sharing similar cases of AI being able to replace humans, those are the feelings of an onlooker, and the impact of my personal experience is completely incomparable.
Later, at the end of 2025 and recently, Wall Street underwent three rounds of bloodshed:
The first wave was a massacre of software companies; the second wave targeted SaaS companies, and the third wave affected security companies. The reasons were all similar, fearing that the rise of AI would impact these existing industries.
If the above examples were merely the direct impact of AI on other industries, then at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, the industry where I typically work made me experience for the first time the indirect impact brought by AI—although it was indirect, the magnitude of the impact was something I could not have imagined previously.
Readers who are usually concerned about the development of AI probably learned somewhat about this information in the second half of 2025:
Several major mainstream storage manufacturers stopped the production capacity of ordinary storage due to the urgent demand for high-bandwidth memory by AI.
This move quickly impacted the prices of ordinary storage, causing prices of almost all storage chips to rise sharply.
The company I work for is an electronics company, and storage chips are essential for our products. Now, the sharp increase in storage chip prices has forced the prices of our products to rise as well, to the extent that most existing customers can hardly bear it.
The consequences of this are evident: all users, especially bulk users, have almost completely stopped purchasing.
If the price of storage chips does not return to its previous level, we will find it almost impossible to obtain bulk orders.
Our estimate is that we must be prepared for an entire 2026 without bulk orders.
This is not an issue faced by a single company, but a difficulty experienced by all companies in the entire industry.
It can be imagined that during this period, a considerable number of companies will encounter cash flow problems, leading to mass bankruptcies within the industry.
Before this, I found it hard to imagine that an indirect impact from AI could trigger such a massive surprise—perhaps that is what the "butterfly effect" refers to?
A butterfly flapping its wings in the tropical jungles of Brazil could unexpectedly trigger a storm miles away.
Of course, if we can survive this difficult period, the remaining few companies will seize the entire market in the future, leading to substantial profits.
Therefore, the impact of AI will be a double-edged sword: it is a brutal slaughter for the weak, but a powerful booster for the strong.
Not only companies are in such a situation; I believe ordinary people will face a similar predicament with the development of AI in the future.
I hope all our readers stay healthy in the Year of the Horse and manage their cash flow well, enabling them to smoothly survive the tremendous impacts that AI may bring to us in employment, life, and other aspects over the next few years, holding out for their own opportunities and hopes to reappear.
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